Last week, I shared a tragic story of a veteran who committed suicide less than three hours after being assessed as a “low risk” patient, and was released from VA care. The carelessness of his assessment was largely due to a standardized questionnaire that was used to identify high risk patients. This is a serious oversight, especially when you consider the statistic that by the end of the day, 18 veterans will have taken their own lives.

Since these troops make it home from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battlefields alive, they are not counted as casualties of war. In 2007, 6,256 veterans committed suicide. That’s about two thousand more than the number of troops who died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. And yet, these deaths are not counted among the war casualties.  

But what else can you blame for these suicides? Concerns over the rising rate of PTSD among veterans have been escalating. An even more telling statistic of this problem is the fact that the suicide rate among veterans is twice that of the civilian population, evidence that the war is a decisive factor in these suicides.

While Bush and Republicans have kept the troops at war in Iraq — and have gone to great lengths to keep them there, through extended tours of duty, stop/loss, refusing to talk about a timeline for withdrawal — they’ve been less willing to go the extra mile to help the troops when they come home. Witness Bush’s, McCain’s and other prominent Republicans’ refusal to support the Webb G.I. Bill extending further educational benefits to veterans, as well as McCain’s record of voting against increasing health benefits to veterans in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

We need to bring our troops home on a reasonable timeline, but we also need to start taking better care of our returning soldiers — a challenge that would be greatly eased if we weren’t wasting $10 billion a month on the war in Iraq  Imagine the kind of care we could provide our veterans if we weren’t wasting all our tax money on the war.

How much of your tax dollars are going to the war in Iraq? And what could that money buy for a veteran in need? Find out by using Progressive Future’s Invest in US Calculator. The calculator takes a person’s 2007 income before taxes and tells you how much of that person’s tax money went to fund the war (average: $235), and how many seconds of war that bought (average: .04 seconds). Then it tells you, with that money, how many days of veterans’ higher education benefits (average: 5) that money could have paid for, as well as other much needed initiatives at home. Then we are asking users to sign our Invest In US petition, which we plan on taking to Congress, the Platform Committees, and the media to push for new priorities for tax spending.

What happens when you deploy troops who have seen high intensity combat time and time again with inadequate dwell time between tours? You see skyrocketing mental health issues.  

After months of investigative work, talking to our troops and veterans, we released a report on the situation at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. Since 9/11, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been deployed for more than forty months, more than any other brigade in the Army, and we are seeing what is nothing short of a cry for help from the men and women on the base; a cry we will answer, and one we will answer here in California which has seen thousands of its young men and women deployed.

A cry for help that is also coming from the leadership on the base. In a New York Times article today about our report, Major General Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, says: “We recognize that there is stress on our force and their families from this conflict, but until recently, we have not fully appreciated the extent of some of the mental stresses and injuries or how to best identify them.” Please read the rest of the article here.

What is happening at Fort Drum — with Soldiers still on active duty suffering from PTSD, with Soldiers and their families in need of counseling, with Soldiers literally dying while still on duty — is going to happen all around America unless we begin to address some of the basic issues of this war.  As our report explains, DoD itself has stated that the likelihood of troops having mental health problems increases by 60% with every tour of duty. So, in short, through ourdeployment policies, we are consciously compounding the wounds of war.

This is unacceptable to us. Veterans for America’s Wounded Warrior Outreach Program will continue to address these problems from the bottom up.  

We are going to go to as many bases as we can afford to go to, see what is happening on those bases and see how we can help. If you can help us, we would greatly appreciate it.

We are going to continue our Wounded Warrior Registry Outreach — if you or someone you know needs help getting help with PTSD or TBI, please click here.

And above all, we are going to continue to serve and help those that serve and have served us with the same level of dedication and courage they have shown. Click here to learn more about what we are doing.

(Go Congressman!- blogswarm;
Now cross-posted at MyDD! Go over and rec it! : ) – promoted by atdleft)

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NOTE: The initial inspiration for Jerry McNerney to advocate this action was a Daily Kos diary titled “Will he still love me?” by testvet6778; this is also cross-posted on Jerry’s Blog… – Eden w/ McNerney for Congress

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Today is Memorial Day, a time to recognize and honor the men and women who have given their lives in service to our nation for over two centuries, from the American Revolution to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While this day is always a solemn national event, I know many Americans are feeling a profound sense of pain on this particular Memorial Day. The thoughts and feelings you have expressed to me about how to support our troops in this time of war — in-person at my “Congress At Your Corner” events, by phone, through email, or in the hundreds of comments on my blog — is a reflection of that deep sentiment.

More below the fold, including a very important action you can take to support our veterans living with Traumatic Brain Injury and an update on our effort to save the Livermore VA hospital from being closed…

While our country may be divided about how best to support our troops in these conflicts abroad, this day is about uniting to remember those who have given their all to our nation.

Today, you can join millions of your fellow Americans in reconciliation and respect by observing the “National Moment of Remembrance,” a national minute of silence at 3 p.m. local time. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada says, this is “a way we can all help put the `memorial’ back in Memorial Day.”

We have a duty as Americans to remember the people who have sacrificed for our country. And, we also have a duty to take care of returning veterans whose body, mind or spirit may be wounded in the conflicts they fight abroad. That’s why I’ve recently led the effort to pass legislation that will significantly increase funding and research into Traumatic Brain Injury (or “TBI”), often caused by roadside bomb explosions.

Last year, I asked you on Memorial Day to financially support a grassroots organization called “Operation Helmet,” which provided special blast-protective headgear to troops in combat to prevent TBI. Your generosity — and the response by thousands of other Americans — was so profound that Operation Helmet recently announced that it no longer needed to solicit donations.

This year, no matter your feelings about the war, I want to ask you to join together again in collective action to heal our soldiers and our nation. Bob Woodruff, the former ABC News anchor who suffered a serious brain injury after a roadside bomb explosion last year, has founded the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury to help soldiers suffering from TBI to receive cognitive rehabilitation.

http://www.bobwoodru…

On behalf of all the veterans who continue to suffer the ill effects of these horrific injuries, today I would like you to seriously consider making a contribution of whatever amount you can afford to the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury.

Rest assured that contributions to the Woodruff Family Fund will actually go to the cause of caring for our veterans. When you click the “Donations” link at the web site above, you will be redirected to the Brain Injury Association of America. Under the section “Program Area," please click the scroll bar to select “Bob Woodruff Family Fund for TBI” as the recipient of your donation.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this important request on this solemn day.

Sincerely,

Jerry

P.S. Many of you have recently asked me how we can save the veterans hospital facility in Livermore from closing due to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs federal budget cutbacks. Rest assured that I will continue to focus my energy on keeping the Livermore VA hospital open and potentially expand its services to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

With growing support for my PTSD proposal for Livermore from major newspapers across our region, there is a growing consensus that keeping the Livermore VA open and reshaping its mission would be in the best interests of our veterans. You can read those newspapers editorials and other posts on my efforts to keep the Livermore VA open by clicking here to read the “Veterans Affairs” section of my campaign blog.